Organizations are increasingly operating in a geographically dispersed environment. As this trend continues, it is increasingly important to have effective xe2x80x9cdistributed project managementxe2x80x9d (i.e., project management processes and technologies that support individuals and teams that span multiple physical locations). To work effectively and decisively as a team, there must be effective communication and collaboration between the individual personnel/team members. Face-to-face meetings among team members have been the traditional manner of communicating. But, with geographically dispersed teams, face-to-face meetings are typically difficult to schedule, require travel time, and are expensive.
To improve the process, facilitators (i.e., a person designated to organize and monitor meetings), are sometimes used to enhance the efficiency of the face-to-face meetings. While improving the efficiency of the face-to-face meeting, the facilitator""s dedicated time is an additional cost.
Video conferencing can be used to have remote face-to-face meetings. Video conferencing saves travel time and cost, but all parties must be available at the same time at a facility with the requisite equipment. So, even though the traveling is reduced or eliminated, the inefficiency and difficulty in scheduling remain the same.
With the advent of wide area computer networks, such as the Internet, less expensive communications have become possible for distributed project management. Besides being less expensive, computer network communications allow for two forms of communications: synchronous and asynchronous.
An example of synchronous or xe2x80x98livexe2x80x99 computer network communications is web conferencing, where all the team members having a computer attached to the computer network can take part in the discussion without travel, but must be on-line at the same time and are not as convenient as email since the team members must be at their computers during the conference and a record of the conversation is generally not saved. Asynchronous communications, which is more time flexible for the team members, includes instant massaging, document storage and sharing, group e-mail, message boards, and instant printing. The asynchronous forms of computer network communications may or may not store transactions occurring during the meeting.
Furthermore, the asynchronous forms of network communications tend to be become unfocused due to a lack of structure. For example, e-mails, which are quick and inexpensive, may get intermingled with e-mails pertaining to non-team matters and tend to proliferate. Conversation threads in these e-mails can be severed in the event a team member accidently sends a xe2x80x9creplyxe2x80x9d rather than a xe2x80x9creply to allxe2x80x9d when participating in a collaborative email discussion. Message boards provide another example where the lack of structure and lack of discipline of team members may lead to the discussion""s becoming unfocused.
Thus far, there has not been an effective bridge of the gap between technology and human interaction in distributed project management.
A distribution management system can facilitate synchronous and asynchronous communications, take advantage of electronic scheduling tools, support a facilitator paradigm, and store meeting communications for later retrieval. The system can keep the team focused through a use of processes and tools having varying degrees of structure.
Accordingly, one aspect of the system can be used to create a collaborative environment for members of a team in communication with a computer network. An interactive forum can be provided in the collaborative environment in a manner offering varying degrees of structure for collecting information from the members of the team. The information can then be used to arrive at a collaboratively derived decision.
The system can receive a topic from the facilitator or team member to be interactively and collaboratively considered by the members of the team. The system can then collect information from team members regarding the topic and/or interactive process. Collection techniques may include requesting the members to consider at least one option for the matter being considered. The data collected may be in the form of an absolute metric, relative measure, or free-form input.
The system may automatically inform team members of the topic or process through a notice in an asynchronous manner, such as through an email. A direct link to respond to the notice may be provided in the notice.
The system may employ a process that solicits input from the team members for a present state of the topic, an end state of the topic, and a process for proceeding from the present state to the end state. The system may also employ a process that allows a non-team member to coach a subset of members on the problem solving process and techniques in a manner that is driven by the team member.
Among many tasks, the facilitator or a selected team member (i.e., leader) can set-up a team, choose a topic, provide a focus for the topic, choose a process through which the collaboration is conducted, define start and end times for team members to provide input, and control the flow of the process through decision-making based on the input from the team members. The team members can provide input to the collaboration in a manner defined by the process.